The Last of us

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay. 

Created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman

We clearly entered into a new age of entertainment. The time of one and a half hour movies is long gone and now what we have is an extension of this to eight shows or twelve where you get to lengthen the experience and the tension we once enjoyed over a few minutes to months and weeks if you like or to just a matter of days if you are into binge watching. 

The time we live is has also brought about an emergence of themes that have sought to bring real world situations into the cinema. Global tragedies such as nuclear disasters and environmental concerns have thrust us into a time where many are beginning to think and embrace the dystopian view of the future. 

In addition to the merger between history and the future, we are also seeing an inter link between previously unrelated forms of leisure. Gaming is now connected with the film and the combined numbers in terms of revenue are staggering. 

The last of us is the fulfillment of all those ideas and then some. Right at a time when the population is still primed and thinking about epidemics, something goes out of hand when a fungus begins to attack humanity. An expert is called in to make her assessment and her conclusions are that the whole country should be nuked. In the meantime a man and his daughter are on the run and trying to make their way out of a city when tragedy strikes. Ah enough of the spoilers. The movie then continues but with this loss of life at the heart of this man’s life. He is trying to survive but is also trying to heal. This is what most of us are really about. Navigating life and trying to fix ourselves while facing the horrors of our past. In the meantime, in a post apocalyptic world there is a government that emerges and that tries to bind everything together while at the same time a resistance also forms. These are scattered across all sorts of geographies and the protagonist as least in some of the episodes is found trying to make his way through hostile environments. The series splits up into several sections (each episode is about one hour long) and tackles complex subjects such as love and identity and sexuality. It places the characters I rough situations and turns the hardest of men into simple broken beings. It also explores religion and faith and survival and what can go wrong when people are living together in a cruel world while also trying to survive. There is an undertone  that plagues the series at least for me where I wonder about the role of a father as well as that of necessity when two people are stuck together and bound together in a world that could have only the two of them left…to populate? But that’s just me thinking about Lord of the Flies (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100054/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 ) and Blue Lagoon (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080453/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 ) at the same time. That and the story of Lot and his daughters is the Bible (Gen. 19:30-36).

Entebbe Ya Nyinimu

Here is another surprisingly delightful piece of entertainment from one called Phillip Omwana W’Abandi. Entebbe ya Nyinimu loosely translated “as the seat that belongs to the head of the house” is about a mysterious three legged chair that holds spiritual significance in the home of a certain family. The director/actor is Phillip Omwana W’Abandi and he plays the role of patriarch. We also have Phionah Nalubegga, Akram Mubiru, Fahad Waligo and Sophia Namwanje. 

The story is about a family that has some secrets. There is a son who refuses to go see his father. A sister and brother who are looking to are looking to get ahead. A medicine man who has the pulse on the challenges in his community. A brother in law who is struggling to find relevance in the family he married into. Children who seem invisible and who play with the invisible (plot spoiler).

I enjoyed the story because there were lessons about history and consequence. Some insights into the supernatural and how the netherworld can intervene in the lives of humanity. Even if I have been critical of the guys who do voice overs, they offer interesting depths into cultural nuances that you may be unfamiliar with as you watch the presentation. In addition to this, anyone who wants to make sense of life in Uganda especially in the villages where traditional religious belief reigns, will do well to study some of these theatrical works for perspective. 

Citadel

 

I have posted the standard Wikipedia summaries that I usually enjoy in this piece. What we have done differently is simply release them as images. So you have a very brief image describing the show as well as the central characters and then you have what some of the critics said about the film. 

In my view it was a good show. The action scenes were really intense. You could say they were ‘Johnwickesqe’ clearly the style of close shooting in the series featuring the famed actor from the a John Wick movies was employed here. The rapid fire shots to the head and the gore that emerges from this. The use of multiple fighting styles that seems to almost be dance like. Then there is the choice of characters. Stanley Tucci is amazing with his one liners his wit and his nonchalance. Lesley Manville excels in her presentation of a brutal and calculating minister with a history in the world of espionage and abound to pick with her adversaries. She is conniving and cruel. The twins I like the most with the bearded look they are an unusual pair of viscous villains. We are accustomed to other types of antiheroes…maybe slightly thinner and taller with darker hair. We might even see the occasional white haired or even black tall bad guy. But a bearded one is a fresh look and the actor does this role justice. I like the way the film takes you through the complex histories of the main characters and the decisions that they have to make. I like the love story that is woven in the series and the issues that divined those who chose a life in service of a greater good. This is what the show portrays the life of espionage involving the greater good of not just nations but serving on a global scale. There is an interesting line in the series in which the two doomed lovers are confronted with their feelings and a statement is made to the effect of “you cannot be a spy and a saint at the same time”. 

Then there are other issues such as memory that are explored. Maybe even the idea of life after death in the sense that those who go and maybe return must make the choice to live on or relive their past lives and meet their old loves in a new frame? There are also interesting explorations about memory and the idea that these can be preserved and maybe even wiped by the push of a button. 

Overall I would say maybe 80% for me. For the combination action, history, the exploration of science, global dynamics, relationships, love, broader themes like justice and equity. 

City of God

This is one of the best pictures that I have seen this year…okay probably ever. The guy who put this together has mastered the art of story telling. Where the film starts is where it ends. And that is a story within itself. Then he weaves together a tapestry of characters moving seamlessly back and forth from person to person from location to locations as he masterfully gives you a glimpse into the lives of the people who will make up this complex story. 

There are tales about poverty and race relations in the early seventies and eighties and Brazil’s attempt to deal with these issues. Then there are the lives of a few young men who lived in these difficult circumstances but who somehow managed to create a life albeit of crime out of this existence. He takes you through these lives and the families in which they lived and the struggles they endured as well as the bonds they created. He shows you how important it is to begin to think strategically at a young age and how this can be a valuable asset even if in this case it is in a life on the other side of the law. He demonstrates how young men made decisions some for the better others for the worse and how these decisions affected their lives. He shows you how change happens and how events seemingly unrelated can lead to changes in the lives of young people that are almost irreversible. He tells stories about growing up and falling in love and making love or at least trying to. He tells stories about the racial divide as well as the wealth gaps that exist in society. He tells tales of the life that many must navigate to survive and the systems they establish to make it work. The story is reminiscent of black hawk down at least in the communication networks that were set up to alert the residents when raids were about to take place. This time though, the ecosystem was created to move ‘product’. The introduction of an unlikely hero is also interesting as is the emergence of one who will perhaps not necessarily be seen as one although in many cases the challenge is really just to survive and live to tell the tale. 

If I were to summarize the movie with a few words I would say, the chicken, the camera and the gun!